With the looming decisive second round in the French elections, there is renewed scrutiny on the National Front and its titular head Marine Le Pen.

Networked with various figures ranging from the milieu of Donald Trump to that of Turkish president Erdogan, the National Front and the Le Pens (father Jean-Marie and daughter Marine) are carrying on the fascist tradition in France.

The second of two shows, this program continues our examination of French deep politics, scrutinizing powerful economic and financial arrangements that determined the Franco-German political dynamic throughout most of the twentieth century and, thus far, through the twenty-first as well.

Critical to our understanding is the dynamic of occupying the high ground on both sides of a political divide. This program underscores how this has placed Germany in a key strategic position on both sides of key political struggles: In the pre-World War II era and postwar era as well; In the right-left political divide in French politics; In the struggle between anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim advocates such as the National Front and Muslim-Brotherhood linked elements in the Islamist community.

Key elements of discussion include:

1. Review of Steve Bannon’s ideological fondness for French anti-Semite and Vichy collaborationist Charles Maurras. Maurras’ Action Francaise is a direct antecedent of the National Front. ” . . . . One of the primary progenitors of the party was the Action Française, founded at the end of the 19th century. . . .”

2. Review of the relationship between former president Francois Mitterand (a socialist) and French Holocaust implementer and Vichy police official Rene Bousquet, who was close to Mitterand and helped to finance his campaign and those of other left-wing French politicians. With financial influence in left-wing parties, Germany can help motivate the French left to band together to defeat the French National Front and its anti-EU, anti-NATO ideology. Potential leftists can also be channelled into an anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim position along that of the National Front. ” . . . . . . . The most damning of all charges against Mitterrand and his right wing connections is probably his long lasting friendship with René Bousquet, ex secrétaire général of the Vichy police. . . . In 1974, René Bousquet gave financial help to François Mitterrand for his presidential campaign against Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. In an interview with Pierre Favier et Michel Martin-Roland Mitterrand claimed that he was not the only left wing politician to benefit from Bousquet’s money, as René Bousquet helped finance all the principal left wing politicians from the 1950s to the beginning of the 1970s, including Pierre Mendès France. . . .”

3. Discussion of Francois Mitterand’s primary role in establishing the Euro, as a prerequisite for German reunification (his alleged “fear” of a reunified Germany should be taken with a grain of salt in light of his collaborationist background and relationship with Rene Bousquet: ” . . . . He [Robert Zoellick] explained his understanding of how Europe got its common currency. . . . it was very clear that European monetary union resulted from French-German tensions before unification and was meant to calm Mitterrand’s fears of an all-too-powerful Germany. According to Zoellick, the euro currency is a by-product of German unification. . . . in strategic terms, Germany’s influence has never been greater. As the continent wants to bank on Germany’s AAA rating, Berlin can now effectively dictate fiscal policy to Athens, Lisbon and Rome – perhaps in the future to Paris, too. . .”

4. More about the Euro (launched with the critically important assistance of Francois Mitterand: “. . . . It [the euro] has turned the Germans into the new rulers of Europe. And it has consigned France to be the weaker partner in the Franco-German relationship. . . .”

5. Analysis of the decisive relationship between French steelmakers belonging to the Comite des Forges and their German counterparts and Ruhr coal producers, one of the foundational elements of the Fifth Column that is antecedent to the National Front: ” . . . . The struggle of the interwar period was not simply a clash between French interests on the one side and German interests on the other. During the development of the Ruhr-Lorraine industrial complex, like-minded industrialists in France and Germany had become directors of jointly owned and jointly controlled financial, industrial, and distributing enterprises. In many cases common views on questions of economic organization, labor policy, social legislation, and attitude toward government had been far more important to the industrialists than differences of nationality or citizenship. . . . ”

6. The economic collaboration between French and German oligarchs worked to the advantage of Germany: ” . . . .It is curious to note that only the French appeared to have this conflict between public policy and private activities. On the German side, complete co-ordination seems to have been preserved between national and private interests; between officials of the German Republic and the leaders of German industry and finance. . . .”

7. Exemplifying the operation of the pro-German Fifth Column in the Ruhr-Lorraine industrial complex is the relationship between the De Wendel and Rochling interests: ” . . . . During World War I the De Wendels, the influential French-German banking and industrial family which headed the French wing of the International Steel Cartel through their Comite des Forges and whose members had sat in the parliaments of both France and Germany, were able to keep the French army from destroying industrial plants belonging to the German enterprises of the Rochling family. . . . . . . . The Rochling family, with their powerful complex of coal, iron, steel and banking enterprises in Germany, has for generations played in close harmony with the de Wendel family. . . .”

8. The De Wendel/Rochling links were so profound that the Rochlings were called upon to help build the French defensive Maginot Line: ” . . . . On the other hand, as far as the French steel makers’ association, the Comite des Forges, and in particular the de Wendels who headed the Comite, were concerned, it was business as usual-or in this case, business as unusual-that prevailed. . . . When it came time for France to build its impregnable Maginot Line, who should be called in to supply steel and technical assistance but the German firm of the brothers Rochling. . . .”

9. After the French capitulation, the Vichy government–to no one’s surprise–exonerated the Rochlings: ” . . . . Now comes the outbreak of World War II. The French army marching into the Saar during the ‘phony war’ period in 1939, received orders not to fire on or damage the plants of the ‘war criminals,’ the brothers Rochling. In 1940 came the blitz and the fall of France. The Vichy government passed a decree exonerating the Rochlings and canceling their forty-year prison sentences. . . .”

10. The Franco-German steel cartel, in turn, belonged to an international steel cartel featuring the Thyssen firm Vereinigte Stahlwerke (later Thyssen A.G.). The Thyssen interests are inextricably linked with the Bormann capital network. The Thyssens’ principal American contacts were the Bush family. ” . . . . They marked the formation of the United Steel Works in Germany, as a combination of the four biggest steel producers Ernst Poensgen, Fritz Thyssen, Otto Wolff, and the others who drew this combine together had managed to get over a hundred million dollars from private investors in the United States. Dillon Read & Company, the New York investment house which brought Clarence Dillon, James V. Forrestal, William H. Draper, Jr., and others into prominence, floated the United Steel Works bonds in the United States . . . . ”

11. During the occupation of France, the Franco-German corporate connection yielded further German capital domination of French firms: ” . . . The Third Republic’s business elite was virtually unchanged after 1940. . . . They regarded the war and Hitler as an unfortunate diversion from their chief mission of preventing a communist revolution in France. Antibolshevism was a common denominator linking these Frenchmen to Germans. . . . The upper-class men who had been superbly trained in finance and administration at one of the two grand corps schools were referred to as France’s permanent ‘wall of money,’ and as professionals they came into their own in 1940. They agreed to the establishment of German subsidiary firms in France and permitted a general buy-in to French companies. . . .

12. The Franco-German corporate links and the domination of that relationship by corporate Germany and the Bormann network continued into the postwar period: ” . . . . Society’s natural survivors, French version, who had served the Third Reich as an extension of German industry, would continue to do so in the period of postwar trials, just as they had survived the war, occupation, and liberation. These were many of the French elite, the well-born, the propertied, the titled, the experts, industrialists, businessmen, bureaucrats, bankers. . . . Economic collaboration in France with the Germans had been so widespread (on all levels of society) that there had to be a realization that an entire nation could not be brought to trial. . . .”

13. Corporate German/Bormann control of French commerce and finance is the determining factor in contemporary French affairs: ” . . . . The understandings arrived at in the power structure of France reach back to prewar days, were continued during the occupation, and have carried over to the present time. [New York Times reporter Flora] Lewis, in her report from Paris, commented further: ‘This hidden control of government and corporations has produced a general unease in Paris.’ Along with the unease, the fact that France has lingering and serious social and political ailments is a residue of World War II and of an economic occupation that was never really terminated with the withdrawal of German troops beyond the Rhine. . . .”

14. The Franco-German corporate Axis facilitated the De Wendel family’s postwar assistance of Friedrich Flick, another of Hitler’s top industrialists.: ” . . . . The understandings arrived at in the power structure of France reach back to prewar days, were continued during the occupation, and have carried over to the present time. Lewis, in her report from Paris, commented further: ‘This hidden control of government and corporations has produced a general unease in Paris.’ Along with the unease, the fact that France has lingering and serious social and political ailments is a residue of World War II and of an economic occupation that was never really terminated with the withdrawal of German troops beyond the Rhine. . . .”

15. The seamless incorporation of the Franco-German corporate axis into the German-dominated EU and EMU has yielded the ability of the Federal Republic to interfere in the French political process: ” . . . . Like Fillon, Macron is considered ‘Germany-compatible’ by a German think tank, whereas all other candidates are viewed as unsuitable for ‘constructive cooperation’ because of their criticism of the EU and/or of NATO. Recently, Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble ostentatiously recommended voting for Macron. Berlin’s interference on behalf of Macron shows once again that German domination of the EU does not stop at national borders, and – according to a well-known EU observer – surpasses by far Russia’s feeble meddling in France. . . .”

The program concludes with rumination about the role of anti-Muslim sentiment in the French and U.S. political process and the presence of Underground Reich-linked elements on both the “anti-immigrant” side and the Islamist/Muslim Brotherhood side.

Program Highlights Include:

1. Review of the Islamist/Muslim Brotherhood Turkish Refah Party (the direct antecedent of Erdogan’s AKP) and its relationship to Ahmed Huber of the Bank Al-Taqwa.

2. Review of the role of Ahmed Huber (later of the Bank Al-Taqwa) in introducing Turkish Muslim Brotherhood’s Necmettin Erbakan with Marine Le Pen’s father: ” . . . . . . . . A second photograph, in which Hitler is talking with Himmler, hangs next to those of Necmettin Erbakan and Jean-Marie Le Pen [leader of the fascist National Front]. Erbakan, head of the Turkish Islamist party, Refah, turned to Achmed Huber for an introduction to the chief of the French party of the far right. Exiting from the meeting . . . . Huber’s two friends supposedly stated that they ‘share the same view of the world’ and expressed ‘their common desire to work together to remove the last racist obstacles that still prevent the union of the Islamist movement with the national right of Europe.’. . .”

3. Review of The Camp of the Saints, a racist, anti-immigrant book valued both by French National Front types and Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

The events overtaking the United States are echoes of events occurring worldwide. This “2017 World Tour” examines aspects of ascendant global fascism, including historical and ideological trends stretching back to the World War II period.

Yet another of the fascist/Nazi/racist influences on Steve Bannon is French writer Charles Maurras. A doctrinaire anti-Semite, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for collaborating with the Third Reich.

Setting Maurras’s activities in an historical context, we recap an excerpt from FTR #372 (August of 2002) detailing the French Fifth Column that subverted the French military resistance to the armies of the Third Reich. Maurras’s L’Action Francaise was among the journals influencing French fascists, who saw the German invasion as a vehicle for eliminating democracy and, at the same time, blaming the defeat on government of Leon Blum, whose murder was advocated by Maurras.

In Italy, Bepe Grillo’s Five Star Movement is leading in the polls, and may come out ahead in the 2018 elections. Observers have seen the party as an heir to Mussolini’s blackshirts. We note, in passing, that the populist idealism officially endorsed by Five Star is similar to aspects of many left-populist agendas, while incorporating features of contemporary fascist politics.

Traveling northward, we observe the resuscitation of Slovakian fascism and the celebration of Nazi quisling Josef Tiso’s World War II collaborationist government. Social media/Facebook are a key element of the success of the “neo-Tiso’s.”

An American/Swedish axis, of sorts, manifests as a collaborative effort between Trumpenkampfverbande supporter Richard B. Spencer and Daniel Friberg, a key figure in the Swedish fascist milieu of Carl Lundstrom.

Traveling to Asia, we note the re-emergence of Japanese fascism, instituted in the Abe government by organizations like Nippon Kaigi. In addition to instituting revisionist teaching in the Japanese educational system, the Abe government is curtailing that country’s free press.

Several of Abe’s cabinet ministers are supportive of Hitler’s electoral strategy, seeing it as a blueprint for the implementation of Japanese reaction–among them Tomomi Inada, the new defense minister.

The program concludes with a look at Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist/fascist government and it selection of a hard-line anti-Muslim bigot to govern the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Program Highlights Include: review of Modi’s BJP as a cat’s paw for the Hindu nationalist/fascist RSS; discussion of the economic links between German and French industrialists that underlay the development of the French Fifth Column inspired, in part, by Charles Maurras; review of the links between Carl Lundstrom, WikiLeaks and Assange aide Joran Jermas, a doctrinaire Holocaust denier; review of the “Nazified AI” at the heart of Cambridge Analytica’s data manipulation engine.

This broadcast concludes our review of Fara Mansoor’s heroic, ground-breaking research on what we call “The Deep October Surprise,” and references the historical lessons to be drawn from the inquiry to the contemporary political scene. Usually, the term “October Surprise” refers to an alleged deal between the Reagan/Bush campaign and the Khomeini regime in Iran to withhold the U.S. hostages taken from the American Embassy until after Jimmy Carter’s humiliation and consequent election defeat were assured. Fara’s research goes farther and deeper, suggesting that the CIA learned of the Shah’s cancer in 1974 (from former CIA director Richard Helms), withheld the information from Jimmy Carter, installed Khomeini’s Islamic fundamentalists as an anti-communist bulwark on the Soviet Union’s Southern flank and then micro-managed the hostage crisis to insure the ascension of the Reagan/Bush/Casey forces. What has become known as the Iran-Contra Scandal was an outgrowth of this dynamic. In this program, we flesh out the networking involving the Shah’s intelligence specialist Hossein Fardoust, who selected the personnel for Khomeini’s military general staff and became the head of his secret police. Another of the Bush/CIA operatives–Ibrahim Yazdi–helped Khomeini move from Iraq to Paris, served as his de facto chief of staff in Paris, served as his PR flack in the U.S., and was instrumental in maneuvering Mashallah Khashani into place as security coordinator for the U.S. Embassy in Teheran. Program Highlights Include: Khashani’s leadership in the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in November of 1979; the partial disarming of the Marine guards at the embassy prior to the takeover; a prior takeover attempt on 2/14/1979 by Khomeini forces disguised as “leftists;” networking between some of Fardoust’s selections for Khomeini’s general staff and prominent figures in the Iran-Contra scandal; the counter-terrorism background of Linda Tripp, the Bush White House holdover who helped de-stabilize the Bill Clinton administration; Mitt Romney backer and FBI director James Comey’s initiation of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server.

With the recent Iranian nuclear deal and the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran, the history of U.S./Iranian relations has attained greater relevance. In that context, we present the third of several shows revisiting Fara Mansoor’s landmark research on what we have termed the “Deep October Surprise.” Fara’s research suggests that the CIA learned of the Shah’s cancer in 1974 (from former CIA director Richard Helms), withheld the information from Jimmy Carter, installed Khomeini’s Islamic fundamentalists as an anti-communist bulwark on the Soviet Union’s Southern flank and then micro-managed the hostage crisis to insure the ascension of the Reagan/Bush/Casey forces. After a series of violent incidents that sowed chaos in Iran, the Shah himself realized that U.S. intelligence was engineering his removal. ” . . . . By late August [of 1977], the Shah was totally confused. U.S. Ambassador Sullivan recorded the Shah’s pleadings over the outbreak of violence: ‘He said the pattern was widespread and that it was like an outbreak of a sudden rash in the country…it gave evidence of sophisticated planning and was not the work of spontaneous oppositionists…the Shah presented that it was the work of foreign intrigue…this intrigue went beyond the capabilities of the Soviet KGB and must, therefore, also involve British and American CIA. The Shah went on to ask ‘Why was the CIA suddenly turning against him? What had he done to deserve this sort of action from the United States?’ . . . .” Program Highlights Include: the disappearance and probable assassination in Libya of a key Shiite clerical rival of Khomeini’s–Ayatollah Mosa Sadr; a provocation in which a theater was burned down, killing 750 occupants–an attack blamed on the SAVAK and the Shah; an article placed in an Iranian paper that inflamed the populace against the Shah and coalesced the Shiite clergy against him; key Shah aide General Hossein Fardoust’s authorship of the provocative article; the pivotal role played in “the Deep October Surprise” by Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi; the Nazi intelligence background of Fazollah Zahedi, who replaced Mohammed Mossadegh after the CIA coup in 1953.

This broadcast is the second of several programs reviewing and highlighting material first presented in early 1993, featuring the landmark research of Fara Mansoor, a heroic, longtime member of the Iranian resistance. Usually, the term “October Surprise” refers to an allege deal between the Reagan/Bush campaign and the Khomeini regime in Iran to withhold the U.S. hostages taken from the American Embassy until after Jimmy Carter’s humiliation and consequent election defeat were assured. Fara’s research goes farther and deeper, suggesting that the CIA learned of the Shah’s cancer in 1974 (from former CIA director Richard Helms), withheld the information from Jimmy Carter, installed Khomeini’s Islamic fundamentalists as an anti-communist bulwark on the Soviet Union’s Southern flank and then micro-managed the hostage crisis to insure the ascension of the Reagan/Bush/Casey forces. What has become known as the Iran-Contra Scandal was an outgrowth of this dynamic. In this program we present analysis of the first phase(s) of the operation, noting that former CIA director Richard Helms learned of the Shah’s cancer in 1975 from General Hossein Fardoust. Withholding this information from President Carter, the CIA fed the administration disinformation asserting that the Shah’s reign well into the 1980’s was assured. Meanwhile, the Agency was maneuvering to install Khomeini as a bulwark against the left, and, as we shall see, a vehicle to destabilize the Carter administration and guarantee the victory of the Reagan/Bush team in the 1980 elections. Program Highlights Include: the presence in Iran in April of 1978 of George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher; the long association of the Shah-to-be, Richard Helms and General Hossein Fardoust dating to their days together in a Swiss boarding school; Carter’s “Halloween massacre” in which he fired some 800 CIA covert operators, who coalesced as part of the Bush team that installed Khomeini and the fundamentalists in power.

This broadcast begins several programs reviewing and highlighting material first presented in early 1993, featuring the landmark research of Fara Mansoor, a longtime, heroic member of the Iranian resistance. Usually, the term “October Surprise” refers to an alleged deal between the Reagan/Bush campaign and the Khomeini regime in Iran to withhold the U.S. hostages taken from the American Embassy until after Jimmy Carter’s humiliation and consequent election defeat were assured. Fara’s research goes farther and deeper, suggesting that the CIA learned of the Shah’s cancer in 1974 (from former CIA director Richard Helms), withheld the information from Jimmy Carter, installed Khomeini’s Islamic fundamentalists as an anti-communist bulwark on the Soviet Union’s Southern flank and then micro-managed the hostage crisis to insure the ascension of the Reagan/Bush/Casey forces. What has become known as the Iran-Contra Scandal was an outgrowth of this dynamic. In this program, we begin our analysis with an overview of the covert operation, both in the U.S. and Iran, highlighting the key players and the networking in which they engaged to ensure Carter’s downfall and Khomeini’s rise to power. Of particular interest is the “deep-networking” between U.S. operatives such as Richard Cottam and Iranian agents such as General Hossein Fardoust and Viallollah Qarani. Cottam, Fardoust and Qarani’s association stretch from the 1953 coup that installed the Shah and the 1979 “op” that installed Khomeini in Iran and the Reagan/Bush team in the U.S. The program highlights the extent to which American domestic politics, national security policy and overseas diplomacy are controlled by what amounts to a “secret state.”